Principles of Data Management, 3rd Edition

13 DISTRIBUTED DATA AND DATABASES

This chapter looks at some of the issues that need to be addressed when distributing data. Unfortunately, all the theory in this area is based on the distribution of a single set of data – the top-down approach – to improve reliability and availability, but the more likely scenario these days is where an enterprise wishes to integrate its disparate systems so that it looks to the users as if there is a single set of data – the bottom-up approach.

THE RATIONALE FOR DISTRIBUTING DATA

The discussion of database architecture in Chapter 2, and particularly the three-level schema architecture, was based on the assumption that all the data would be held in a single database at a single site. Such an arrangement ...